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The National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Nabard) has prepared a credit plan of Rs 144,436 crore for Tamil Nadu for 2015-16, an around 16 per cent higher from the Rs 1.24 lakh crore credit projection in 2014-15. The bank’s State Focus Paper 2015-16 has made Rs 59,801.03 crore (41.4 per cent) allottment for crop loan, Rs 32,528.19 crore (22.50 %) for agri term loan, MSME Rs 25,647.38 crore (17.75 %) and Rs 26,458.95 crore (18.31 %) for other priority sectors.
K Shanmugam, principal secretary for finance, Tamil Nadu, was quoted in a release stating the focus should be on infrastructure for increasing productivity in agri sector and thrust should be on capital formation.
According to Nabard’s release, the theme for this year is for accelerating the pace of capital formation in agriculture and allied sectors. In order to achieve four per cent growth in agriculture as envisaged in the XII Five Year Plan, capital formation is imperative.
The trends in the agricultural formation, especially since the 90s show the ratio of gross capital formation in agriculture (GCFA) to GDP from agriculture was 12.69 per cent in 1990-91 and reached 19.8 per ecnt in 2011-12.
The ratio of capital formation in agriculture GCFA to overall GDP had stagnated at a level of below three per cent, according to Nabard.
